I once knew a flight
instructor who was always impatient with
his students. Including me. When
something didnt sink in quickly
enough, hed say, Its
not rocket science! So we all
thought it must be quite simple, and we
must be really slow. That instructor
taught me everything he knew, and I still
didnt know anything.

You
dont have to be a rocket scientist
to understand the principals of flight,
how to control an airplane, plan a cross
country trip, change the oil, or clean
the bugs off the leading edges. Most
pilots dont need to be rocket
scientists. But rocket scientists do
exist out there. Men and women who
understand the physics, engineering,
mathematics, geometry, calculus,
aerodynamics, even the human element of
the science. Not the kind of stuff
we learn in the private and commercial
pilot license training.

I had the
privilege to meet and talk to a real
rocket scientist once. He was retired, in
his mid 80s, and a patient of mine
in an ambulance one day, back when I
worked as a paramedic. It wasnt a
particularly urgent call, but he was sick
with something serious enough to need our
service. On the way to the hospital, I
asked him what he did before he retired.
He told me hed worked with NASA in
the 1960s, and had been on the
Apollo team that put Neil Armstrong on
the moon. The Soviets had already put a
man into orbit, Uri Gagarin in 1961. The
race for the moon was on. A 10 year
contest which would eventually cost
40-billion dollars, and there were no
guarantees. I commented that he must be a
real rocket scientist. He admitted I
could call him that.

The
conversation carried on. It would
probably be a lot easier to get to the
moon today, I said.

No, in fact
I doubt we could do it today if it had
never been done before, he replied.

What?!
With the way technology has
advanced since the 60s it
seems to me it could be done quite
easily?

He was
philosophical. The problem
isnt with the science. Its
all about attitudes. People dont
think the way they did in the
60s. Theyre not as
free-wheeling. Theres no spirit of
adventure and excitement on the scale it
was back then. People are scared.
Theyre afraid of things like making
costly mistakes, afraid of liability,
lawyers, juries, insurance, government
policies, discrimination, compensations
and hungry news media.

He went on
to explain. People are scared to
try anything new today. Science could
build anything better, but there would be
growing pains too costly and painful to
survive. Technology exists for example,
to build a robots that would totally care
for a baby. They could do every
unpleasant job the mother faces, and give
her a rest when she needs one. But if
anything ever went wrong, where would
that robot builder be? In court.
Thats where!

Most of the
cost involved in building new airplanes,
engines and other components is in the
liability, not the research and
development. Not in the science. The
lawyers love it. This is a real mess
were in today. And it all has
its basis in the modern attitude
that no one is responsible for his own
screw ups, his own problems. The
fault always lies somewhere else.

Of course
he was right. We see advances in
technology, transportation, in fact in
about any area we care to look. The world
is definitely not standing still. But if
youre old enough to have been
around in the 1960s, youll
agree that our free-wheeling spirit of
adventure, eagerness to try something new
and to take responsibility, just
isnt there anymore. Think of where
wed be today if lawyers had
preceded the Wright brothers. John
F. Kennedy had that spirit. He risked a
lot more than the humiliation of failure.
But the U.S. President was a motivator
who could think and act in a fashion bold
enough to take the nation on a journey
the likes of which the world had never
known. Put a man on the moon.

The retired
scientist with me in the ambulance had
some enlightening things to say. I came
away from the hospital that day thinking
how hed made so much sense of it
all. And the truth of the matter is, this
is not rocket science. It just took a
rocket scientist to point it out.